This is it.
What, predictably, turned into the most chaotic first round in the 11-year history of the NASCAR elimination playoff format will end on Saturday after the Bristol Night Race.
Going into Atlanta, Watkins Glen and Bristol, Denny Hamlin said a big name was ‘going to be eliminated’ and he, himself, is one of three future Hall of Famers who enter this race below the cutline.
This happened because NASCAR scheduled two really combustible tracks to begin the playoffs in a diet superspeedway in Atlanta and a fast road course on an experimental tire at Watkins Glen. Hamlin was involved in two crashes, as was Truex, and Keselowski had William Byron land on top of his car last week.
Keselowski and Truex are former champions and Hamlin is the winningest driver in Cup Series history to have not won a title and all three are at risk of early elimination from the gauntlet.
“I think that when we saw how the tracks were placed in the Playoffs and whatnot, and we knew the adding of Atlanta was going to put some variability in the results that you can’t always plan for,” Hamlin said. “But still you have to execute and certainly, you look at the top five and you look at the bottom five – it is not something you would have predicted and not have seen for the first 27 or 28 races in the year …
“But it is a new ballgame now, and you still have to go out there and perform, so frustrating, being that we haven’t had the results – but today is a new opportunity.”
Truex is going to retire at the end of the season and when asked about this potentially being his last shot at a championship, he very quickly corrected the ledger.
“It is our last shot,” Truex said. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t say nervous, you just kind of want to get it done with – the next 24 hours there is going to be a lot to talk about, a lot to think about and a lot of guess work on how we approach the race. We will just see, but I wouldn’t say that it is nervous.
“I’ve been doing this long enough, that I just look forward to the opportunity. You just more want to get it over with and see how it all turns out, so hopefully it is good, but the guys are working hard, and I’m hoping that it races like it did in the spring because that worked out well for us, we will just see. Hopefully it goes well.”
In 23 starts at Thunder Valley, Keselowski has three wins with eight top-10s and a 16.8 average finish.
“I have as good of a shot as anyone else,” Keselowski said. “It’s a good track for us. We didn’t show as much as I thought we had in qualifying but we had some good race runs in practice and some that were bad too so hopefully we land on the one that is really good.”
Denny Hamlin is one of the all-time greats at Bristol, having won the past two races at Thunder Valley with four wins overall and an average finish of fifth in every race there since 2021.
“I’m coming here to win,” Hamlin said. “That strategy won’t change unless the situation changes in the race. I’m going on the offense starting right away, and I’m going to be fine with the result, either way.
“I just know, that over 500 laps here, things will work themselves out.”
Is Truex, one of the cleanest drivers of his era, and one who laments the lack of ethics in this era, willing to make some bold decisions to do whatever it takes to advance at Bristol?
“I really don’t know. I think it will just kind of depend on the situation — what we find ourselves in and what is going on,” Truex said. “But most likely not. I will most likely race the same way I always do and hopefully we are good enough to get the job done in that way.”
So, the flip side of the three future legends all being below the cutline is that there are some surprises above it too with Chase Briscoe having only made the Round of 16 with a buzzer beating victory in the final race of the regular season at Darlington over Labor Day weekend.
Now he’s six points above the cutline.
“Obviously, you can’t wreck yourself, but you’ve got to be aggressive,” Briscoe said. “It’s going to take a big day for us. I think the big thing for us is qualifying good. I think that’s going to be a huge key. That’s something that we’ve been really, really good at Bristol is qualifying, so I feel good about it.
“Bristol is a place that I would say as a company is probably one of our top five tracks, and then just me personally I feel like it’s one of my better racetracks as well, so I feel really, really good about going into Bristol. Even if we were below the cut line, I would still feel good about it, but we’re going to need a big day.
“The guys that we’re going to be racing – Truex, Denny Hamlin, Ty Gibbs – it’s kind of all the guys that are the typical players that are in the mix to win at Bristol, so it’s going to take a big day for us, but I’m confident that we can go there and have a good night. If we just do everything that we can do and execute from start to finish, at the end of the day that’s all we can control. We can’t control what the other guys do, but if we put in what we feel like is the best race possible for our race team, I’m confident that it will be enough.”
Austin Cindric is also only in the playoffs due to a win, one that came under the wildest circumstances at Gateway, has had two really good days and is close to being locked in.
“What I can’t do is control what happens to other cars in the playoffs with all the factors,” Cindric said. “But I think if you would have asked me if it’s realistic that we could get stage points in both races and finish top 10 in both races to start the playoffs, I would have said yeah.
“So I think we’re absolutely operating within what we’re capable of as a team — let alone I do drive for Team Penske so I feel like the expectation is certainly to be able to go out and perform. And so far, you know, the first two races, our team’s done a pretty good job at bringing fast race cars and being to execute well enough to get some solid points and some solid finishes.”
Ty Gibbs is with a mega team in Joe Gibbs Racing but this is also his first playoff appearance and a learning lesson.
“I mean, it’s, of course, it’s hard, and going to the Cup Series is always a big jump,” Gibbs said. “But I feel like we’re working the hardest we can and go try to make it happen. And if we make it happen, we do,; if we don’t, we don’t. But we just try to give 100 percent effort the whole time, and same with me on the track, same with my pit crew, and try to make it happen.”
So again, for better and worse depending on how one feels about chaos versus racing purity, this first round delivered on its promise of unpredictability and there is still one of the wildest races of the season left to decide the Round of 12.